6/25 Mayport Trip - (crappy video)

dontezuma · June 2016

What a mixed bag Saturday was.

My stepbrother was in town, so I was hoping to just put him on fish.

Leaving the docks, I saw absolutely nothing to shoot at, so we headed around the tips. Hunted scattered pogies for a while and got a whole half dozen (fortunately, I'd bought a bag of frozen insurance at B&M). West wind with 4' rollers made for an ***-kicking out to the wrecks. I'm still not sure why I thought that was a good idea.

So, after an hour there with no action, no birds, no bait balls, we headed in. I saw a tideline about halfway in and drove that for a bit before, sure enough, we found some birds and Spanish. Hooked up a half dozen of those in short order and kept heading in, hoping for some action at the tips or some shrimp boats to chase.

We stopped at twin barges for a couple drifts and Ched got what I think was a bull shark - all gray, pretty stout - and it put up a surprising fight for it's ~4-foot size. Turns out, Ched got him in the pectoral fin, so that's why...

With no shrimp boats in sight, we drifted across the 80-foot hole and Ched got a nice Jack Crevalle, so we rinsed and repeated. Then the rod explodes of the back. I grab it, hang on, and tighten down, and 100 yards away a huge tarpon explodes out of the water! A quick head shake, and he was gone. I didn't care. That was my first tarpon hookup ever, and now I'm ready for more.

We decide that spot is working so we anchor up. A perfect slot red, two blacktips, and a large nurse shark later, and we were ready to call it quits.

And a crazy twist of irony, I hook and reel in an old crusty eight-foot length of anchor rope, and then an hour later when we're ready to go, my anchor gets stuck and breaks off at the chain. Seriously?!

So, I slapped together some cuts in GoPro's Studio (they really need more templates) and posted it on the Tube.

Fun day, but a bloody (Spanish and jacks bleed all over the **** place) ***-kicker of a day. You can tell by how haggard we look. Lol.